As Remembered By The Working Class Hero: My Life, Mary J. Blige: This was the official sweet sixteen album: images of VFW halls, hotel ballrooms, dry erase yearbook-esqe sign boards, hormone-driven yet socially awkward sophomores/juniors in high school. "Be Happy", and "You Bring Me Joy" are indelibly etched into my mind when I think of 1995. I think I might be scarred. Fruitless adolescent quests for "trim" aside, you would be hard pressed to find a young black woman who grew up in these times who did not have My Life as one of her top 10 albums of all time.
I recently made the mistake of suggesting that Mary's latest album The Breakthrough in some way could be mentioned in the same sentence as My Life at a happy hour with some young ladies I went to undergrad with...I was lucky to leave with my life. There is a distinct visceral quality about this album that speaks to so many women, black and white, urban and suburban. I read somewhere that a Japanese singer named Hikaru Utada said that she listens to this album at least three times a day. Despite being a mildly manic claim, such a statement really speaks to how universal, important, and life-changing this album was (and is) for so many people and why it has few peers in its genre.
This album dropped in late November 1994, so we could not rightfully list it as the '94 R&B soundtrack album. Besides, Mary and My Life ruled the charts and the airwaves in 1995. And despite my earlier allusions, this album wasn't strictly for the ladies. As the undisputed “Queen of Hip-Hop Soul”, you can find Mary's second album in the catalog of all of the Musicologists and most of our affiliates. This album had edge -- major edge -- that sharply contrasted Janet's inherent innocence or Sade's benign crooning. So I wasn't too embarrassed when I was a kid and my boys would see this album laying next to Smoothe Da Hustler or Raekwon…cause I knew they had a copy too.
As Remembered By The Working Class Hero: E. 1999 Eternal, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony: Talk about hip-hop and R&B becoming one?!?! This was the first time I really bore witness to this cross-genre phenomenon that would later become the standard in music—and hip-hop would never be the same. This Cleveland collective had that real quick flow that we all associate with the likes of Twista these days. This was the first time hip-hop was really exposed to rappers from the Midwest on this grand a scheme as well, even though the West Coast influence was apparent. But that wasn't it though…they kinda rap-sang too! And they didn't just sing, but they harmonized…like a thugged-out barbershop quintet. While feelings in some circles were mixed on this newness, the general public had reached a consensus—Bone was the best thing since sliced bread. They killed the charts and crossed over in a major way. Suburbia was all over this one.
My memory was jogged, after going back and doing a little research, to recall that Bone had dropped an EP in '94 called Creepin On Ah Come Up. This was the joint with "Thuggish Ruggish Bone" and "For Tha Love of $"—two singles that took the hop community aback with their melodic, quick-tongued musings.
The first time I stopped dead in my tracks, though, was when the omnipresent welfare hymn "1st of Tha Month" dropped. This was followed up by the Grammy-winning tribute to Eazy-E, "Tha Crossroads". Rap music was officially crossing over en masse at this point in history. If you remember, 1995 was also the year that Yo! MTV Raps aired its last show. In many ways the conclusion of that show signaled that hip-hop and rap was on a trajectory that would transcend the basement show created by Ted Demme and institutionalized by Ed and Dre. Bone Thugs N Harmony played a role in ushering in this shift. They did it, however, in a way that was unique and new…and the world was eatin’ it up.
As Remembered By The Working Class Hero: Liquid Swords, The GZA: Junior year in high school was probably my most productive. I was pretty serious about classes, grades, SATs, and getting into college (I was a dork, what can I say). As a youngster, though, I took my hip-hop just as seriously as my academics.
My most distinct memory of junior year was sittin in my American Lit class wit my man Seth. This class was first period and doubled as homeroom after class was over. During homeroom we would do the pledge of allegiance (did we ever stand? I think it was like 50/50). On Mondays they would play a 1948 version of the school’s alma mater, after the pledge and over the loudspeaker in each classroom. During these 15 minutes of homeroom, I would go up to the board, erase whatever we were learning about in class that day, and write hip-hop jewels (or what I thought were jewels) in it's stead.
I distinctly remember a large percentage of what I scribed coming from this album. It hit me in that way. These weren’t quotes that were earth-shattering or Euclidean breakthroughs in science. Rather, they were depictions and descriptions of a grim urban reality that I had no exposure to, but were affecting people who looked like me. I wanted my peers to know that this music and these lyrics were as innovative, cerebral, and profound as any of the literature we were learning in that class.
“You know your town is dangerous when you see the strangest kid come home from doin’ a bid and nothin’ changes.” –GZA
A quote like this, for instance, is something that would strike a cord with me back when I was in high school. Lyrics like these were as descriptive, real, and socially indicting as The Great Gatsby or even Native Son.
There were a lot of guest appearances on this album from other Wu-Tang members, so in many ways, I look at this as a Wu-Tang album….they’re best in fact. Yeah…that’s right…over 36 Chambers and Cuban Linx. The social critique found on Liquid Swords (and more importantly the delivery of this message) edges out the landmark production on 36 Chambers or the trend-setting importance (trends that were later bastardized by other rappers) of Cuban Linx. Go on and marinate on that for a little bit while listening to “Cold World” or “Investigative Reports”.
